The signs were always there, for anyone whos cared to hear. Xhins heterogeneous sounds always contained the signs of something, somewhere else. The multi-instrumentalist has, over the last two decades, low-key infused his electronic music and mixes with compositional flourishes, ambient touches, and live instrumentation. Finally, The Images Within less a return to Xhins roots than a solo fulfilment of long-held, diverse desires; his true colours offers an entry into his holistically experimental, analogue, and very human world. Incited by mortalitys harsh confrontation of us, his first album on his own label The Document may shock or alienate, but its intensely visual poetry of the medieval and antiquarian, its song cycles between and within genres, its independent core of melancholy and necessary catharsis: they are all, as ever, open to anyone who cares to step in.

Mastered by Christian Wright at Abbey Road Studios, the eight tracks within are akin to a soundtrack in search of a film something by Villeneuve or Lynch, perhaps, on a double bill with Oshima or Toshio Matsumoto. Opener This Is Not The Beginning, unlike a tabula rasa, does not demolish but builds upon, further expands Xhins sound stage. Literally: the undulating static and metallic sheens wildly oscillate between the channels and surround; hints of nonhuman growls may make you check your speakers too. – On Bandcamp